In November 2020, for the first time, Japan submitted the request to the Secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) to list six gecko species of the genus Goniurosaurus and one newt species of the genus Echinotriton, which are endemic to the Amami and Okinawa Islands, on Appendix III of CITES. Inclusion on the Appendix regulates international trade by only allowing trade of listed species upon presentation of certificates of origin, critical in preventing inducement of illegal capture in Japan and smuggling out of Japan.

What is CITES?

CITES is an international agreement between governments to prevent species extinction due to excessive international trade through listing of endangered wild plant and animal species in need of protection on Appendices (I-III) according to the trade control measures to be taken, and implementation of regulations on international trade by importing and exporting countries. As of February 2021, 182 countries and the EU are parties to the convention. While proposals by member states on Appendices I and II should be adopted by the Conference of the Parties, which meets every few years, requests on Appendix III can be made at any time and by any Party unilaterally after satisfying conditions for the species' protection under its national legislation. This recent request for inclusion on Appendix III was made to call other parties for prompt cooperation in regulating the trade of national endangered species believed to be affected by trade.

Request for International Cooperation in the Conservation of National Endangered Species

The species requested for inclusion are endemic to Japan and are endangered species whose habitat is limited to the forests of the islands of Okinawa and Kagoshima prefectures. In addition to threats to the survival of these species posed by invasive alien species, these exotic and eye-catching species of geckos and newts are in high demand as pets, with confirmed cases of their sale in overseas markets pointing to the potential threat of capture for sale.

On the Amami and Okinawa Islands, rich in biodiversity and home to numerous endemic species, local stakeholders have been working together to implement measures to prevent poaching of rare species and domestic illegal trade. The capture, domestic trade, and export from Japan of these seven species have been regulated under the Act on Conservation of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, but to date there have been no regulations on international trade between third countries. Following inclusion on Appendix III, confirmation of country of origin will be required for international trade, making it difficult for specimens smuggled from Japan to flow into international markets, helping to prevent illegal capture in Japan and smuggling out of Japan.

Inclusion in the Appendix took effect on February 14, 2021.

Towards Effective Conservation of our National Endangered Species

Measures to protect endangered plant and animal species include habitat conservation and various other approaches depending on the situation of the species. With regards to species for which capture and collection due to demand for trade are the main reasons of reduction in population, the Government of Japan will continue to make appropriate implementation of CITES and other international frameworks to ensure biodiversity in Japan, and will actively contribute to discussions on the appropriate enforcement of CITES as a Party to the Convention.

Current Topics 2

Measures to Prevent the Spread of Red Imported Fire Ant (RIFA)
Response to the unintentional import of invasive alien species

Red Imported Fire Ant (RIFA or Solenopsis invicta) were first observed in Japan in 2017, and as of the end of December 2020, there have been 64 instances in 16 prefectures. The government, as a whole, considers this to be a priority issue and will continue its efforts to prevent RIFA from spreading in Japan.

The impacts of RIFA and response policy

The spread of RIFA, on the IUCN's (International Union for Conservation of Nature) "100 of the World's Worst Invasive Alien Species" list, has been reported in nearby countries including Australia, Taiwan and China since 2000s. In 2005, Japan designated RIFA an invasive alien species based on the Invasive Alien Species Act and has since maintained guard against its import. In the United States, in addition to having caused many deaths in the past, RIFA is also known to cause a wide range of harmful impacts such as disruption to daily life when they colonize nearby habitats, damages to crops and livestock on farms, and damage to infrastructure, with annual damages reportedly ranging as high as five billion USD. Accordingly, since RIFA was first observed in Japan in 2017, it has been considered a priority issue for the government as a whole and has been the subject of ministerial meetings and expert councils, with protection measures put in place at ports and airports.

State of response to RIFA

Of the 64 incidences of RIFA in Japan to date, the majority were observed in marine containers or on the ground at ports where containers had been unloaded. It has been observed on multiple occasions at ports that handle large volumes of imported containers, such as the ports of Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya and Osaka, revealing a definite correlation between distribution volume and RIFA infiltration risk.

In places where RIFA is observed, the Ministry of the Environment (MOE) works together with relevant local governments, port authorities and businesses to effectively exterminate and monitor the situation following extermination. Likewise, periodic precautionary surveys are carried out at 65 ports and 31 airports around the country in cooperation with facilities administrators of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and Tourism. Moreover, MOE has provided guidelines on response methods to local governments, and holds training sessions every year. Additionally, MOE has created a pamphlet, a website and an automated answering service using a chatbot to promote understanding on the impacts of RIFA among the general public. English versions of these materials have been published.

These measures at ports and airports have been effective, and at present no cases of proliferation in residential areas away from port areas have been confirmed, indicating that the domestic spread of RIFA has been prevented.

Dealing with the unintentional infiltration of invasive alien species

From the perspective of stopping infiltration at the source, discussions with experts are taking place on simple methods of cleaning containers. A constituent of wasabi and some household disinfectants are known to have a certain degree of effectiveness. In this globalizing world, there is an increasing risk of unintentional imports of invasive alien species, and there are limits to responses by individual countries. Japan sees this issue as important in the Post-2020 Framework, and would like to seek increasing international cooperation.

Current Topics 3

Ten Years After the Great East Japan Earthquake
Environmental Remediation and Regeneration Initiatives in Affected Areas

March 11, 2021 marks the 10th anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake. The Ministry of the Environment (MOE) has been advancing environmental restoration efforts to quickly reduce the impacts of the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO), including decontamination, interim storage and treatment of contaminated waste.

Environmental Regeneration Initiatives

Initiatives Decontamination is the process of removing radioactive materials from residential areas in order to reduce radiation exposure. A decontamination process has been carried out following formulated plans in 100 cities, towns, and villages in eight prefectures, with all the decontamination completed by March 2018. As a result, the air dose rate has been significantly reduced compared to the early days of the decontamination efforts. Moreover, as decontamination progresses, most evacuation orders have been lifted. At present, decontamination and demolition of houses and other buildings are underway in areas designated as Specified Reconstruction and Revitalization Bases (SRRB) within the Difficult-to- Return zone, aiming for evacuation orders to be lifted sometime between spring of 2022 and spring of 2023.

In Fukushima Prefecture, decontamination has generated a large amount of soil and waste contaminated by radioactive materials, bringing about the need for the facility to provide safe and intensive management and storage of these soils during the period before their final disposal. MOE has built an Interim Storage Facility surrounding the TEPCO's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (NPS) and has been transporting and storing soils there. In terms of land acquisition, contracts have been signed for more than 70% of the total 1,600 hectares. Also among the approximately 14 million cubic meters, roughly 10 million cubic meters have been transported (as of December 2020). The transportation process to this Interim Storage Facility is expected to be completed by March 2022 (except for the soils generated from Difficult-to-Return Zone).

Soils stored at the Interim Storage Facility must undergo final disposal outside of Fukushima Prefecture within 30 years of commencement of storage (by 2045). Reducing the volume of the massive amount of stored soils is key to its final disposal outside the prefecture. MOE is working on the development of technologies for volume reduction treatment and recycling of soil. In a demonstration project on recycling in the Nagadoro Borough of Iitate Village, farmland has been created and test cultivation of crops is ongoing. Measurements of radioactivity levels of crops grown on a trial basis this year ranged from 0.1 to 2.3 Bq/kg, a figure well below the standard for general foods (100 Bq/ kg).

The accident at TEPCO's Fukushima Daiichi NPS has also generated a large amount of wastecontaminated by radioactive materials. In the Countermeasure Area, which covers 11 cities, towns, and villages in Fukushima Prefecture, the government is moving forward on the disposal of disaster waste. The volume that has been transported in Temporary Storage Sites has reached approximately 2.93 million tons (as of the end of December 2020). Waste contaminated by radioactive materials exceeding a threshold of concentration (8,000 Bq/kg) has been designated by MOE, and efforts are being made to dispose of this waste both inside and outside of Fukushima Prefecture according to actual situations faced in each prefecture.

Fukushima Regeneration/ Future-Oriented Project

restoration initiatives, a cooperation agreement with Fukushima Prefecture has been signed on the promotion of future-oriented environmental measures for the reconstruction of Fukushima, in preparation for the next stage of the reconstruction. Efforts are being continued in the reconstruction of disaster-affected areas from an environmental perspective. As part of this project, an "Environmental Town Planning Meeting" was held with Okuma and Futaba Towns. Discussions on community building were held with young people who have connections to both towns, with "environment" and "sustainability" as keywords.

Current Topics 4

Initiatives to Promote ESG Finance

ESG (environmental, social, and governance) Finance, which is closely related to changes in social structures, continues to expand worldwide. In recent years in Japan, institutional investors, financial institutions, and private companies are advancing initiatives to spread decarbonization in corporate management and encourage information disclosure. This section introduces the promotion of ESG Finance with a particular focus on E (environment).

Promotion of dialogue on the commitment by the finance sector to ESG, and ESG information disclosure

While ESG investment has been expanding faster in Japan than in major European countries and the United States, signing the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), an international ESG investment initiative, and the Principles for Responsible Banking (PRB) requires setting targets for investment and lending policies, and assessing the status of initiatives based on global standards. As the related workload and coordination costs have become bottlenecks, in FY2020, the Ministry of the Environment (MOE) has provided support to encourage the signing of these frameworks. With regard to the promotion of information disclosures, MOE continues to improve "the Practical guide for Scenario Analysis in line with TCFD recommendations," and has supported scenario analyses targeting financial institutions.

Implementing ESG Regional Finance to support solutions to regional issues

With Japan's wide range of industries, its financial structure is based mainly on indirect financing. Regional financial institutions, such as regional banks and credit unions, supply funds to small and medium-sized enterprises. Thus, ESG initiatives taken by these institutions have become important. In FY2019, MOE conducted a project to establish a process to assess business feasibility and to take into account ESG factors by forming green projects geared to regional characteristics. As a summary of this project, MOE developed and updated the "ESG Regional Finance Practical Guide".

Expansion of investment and loans targeting positive impacts

To achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement, private funds must be shifted to decarbonization projects. Thus to expand the green bond market, MOE will continue to subsidize the costs of external reviews and support for framework development, which arise in addition to the standard price of bond issuance. The "Green Bond Guidelines "was revised at the end of FY2019, and the "Green Loan and Sustainability- Linked Loan Guidelines" were formulated to enhance the framework of the green finance market in light of global trends. In ESG Finance, it is essential that the environmental and social benefits of investments and loans are measured and maximized. It is necessary to develop concepts and evaluation methods to impact them positively. Deliberations on this issue are underway in the Positive Impact Finance Task Force mentioned below.

Toward the development of ESG Finance

To further develop ESG Finance, it is essential to share good examples of ESG Finance initiatives and maintain ongoing discussions among the various actors involved. MOE will continue the ESG Finance Awards Japan, the first ministerial award in this field, and will periodically convene the ESG Finance High-Level Panel, a gathering of top executives in the finance industry, as a forum for raising awareness and action on ESG Finance. We will share and follow up on the latest initiatives in ESG Finance and disseminate this information both domestically and internationally. At the third meeting of the ESG Finance High-Level Panel held in October 2020, the Positive Impact Finance Task Force and the ESG Regional Finance Task Force, established under the Panel, reported on the "Basic Concept of Impact Finance" and the compilation of a "Common Vision" outline for the expansion of ESG Regional Finance. Both task forces continue to work on the compilation of the "Green Impact Assessment Guide" (tentative title) and the text of the "Common Vision," with plans to present the final report to the Panel's next meeting.

MOE will continue to promote various initiatives to realize the goal of becoming a leading nation in ESG finance.

Current Topics 5

Global Environmental Action (GEA) International Conference 2020

The Global Environmental Action (GEA) International Conference 2020 was held on December 14-15, 2020, where discussions took place with the title "Integration of the Environment and Economy: Towards a Virtuous Cycle of Environment and Growth."

Global Environmental Action (GEA)

The GEA is an NGO founded by former Prime Minister TAKESHITA Noboru, with members including influential figures, nonpartisan Diet members, the business community, and academic societies, who were instrumental in organizing the International Eminent Persons' Meeting on Financing Global Environment prior to the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development.

The GEA holds international conferences inviting domestic and foreign companies, international organizations, researchers, governments, and leaders from various fields to participate. The 14th conference was held on December 14-15, 2020, rescheduled from the original dates in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Ministry of the Environment coorganized the conference with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

GEA International Conference 2020

At the opening ceremony, which was attended by Their Majesties the Emperor and Empress, GEA Chairman TAKESHITA Wataru delivered the opening speech, followed by an address by His Majesty the Emperor of Japan, a guest speech by Prime Minister SUGA, a video message by UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen, and a commemorative speech by Asahi Kasei Honorary Fellow, YOSHINO Akira (2019 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry).

Over the two-day event, the following discussions took place.

Session 1: Implementing the SDGs and the Paris Agreement and Moving towards the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework
The need for redesigning socio-economic systems, including decarbonization, strong green stimulus, and the expansion of synergies among the SDGs, climate goals, and biodiversity targets, in the context of the recovery process from the global COVID-19 pandemic, was discussed.

Session 2: Innovations for Renewable Energy Diffusion
Discussions were held on the importance of systemic innovations to expand the utilization of renewable energy, as well as on other issues above and beyond the topic such as CO2 capture, utilization and storage (CCUS).

Session 3: Climate Change Adaptation and Water
The need for scientific knowledge and predictions on climate risks, promotion of effective and climate-conscious disaster management, and international cooperation were discussed.

Session 4: Promotion of Circular Economy and Countermeasures for Marine Plastic Litter
Policy development based on the circular economy concept in Japan and overseas, solutions for marine plastics, and the importance of international collaboration were discussed.

Session 5: Strategic Initiatives for Achieving SDGs
Methods of localizing the SDGs and the roles of stakeholders such as local governments, businesses and the financial sector were discussed.

To prevent the spread of COVID-19, this conference was held under considerable constraints such as the limited number of participants and the first attempt of online participation from overseas. Nevertheless, intense discussions took place at the venue provided opportunities to deepen understanding on a virtuous cycle of environment and growth towards which to strive.